


The Forsaken Merman

by Ruth_Devero



Category: Waterworld (1995)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-09
Updated: 2017-04-09
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10573362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruth_Devero/pseuds/Ruth_Devero
Summary: Written the day afterWaterworldpremiered.  Set before the movie starts, it’s one of the few pieces ofWaterworldfanfic in existence.  Dare to read it!





	

Sky. Sea. Sun.

The trimaran glided through a calm sea. The Mariner was trolling for a city. He lay in the shade of the small sail, watching the horizon for whatever might come.

There was much to watch for. Smokers, mostly: pirates who killed what they could and destroyed what they didn’t steal. Other drifters, also bent on theft. Trade ships. Atolls. He did not like atolls, but they often had something he needed.

Whale sounded nearby. The Mariner reeled in his line. The curiosity of whales could sink a boat. He would go elsewhere.

Hoisting the great sail was a ticklish job. A hitch in the rhythm, and all would be a hopeless snarl. But when the weight fell and the great sail rose, his heart rose with it.

He listened. _Smooth sailing_ , said the sea. _Good wind_ , said the sky. _All secure_ , said the boat.

He lay in the shade of the great sail, scanning the horizon through half-closed eyes. He could lie thus for hours. It was best this way, away from people.

Sometimes he went so long without speaking to anyone that he ceased to think in words. His thoughts were the thoughts the water gave him, or the wind, or the sunlight, or the boat.

Then he would catch himself and think words in English and in the Portugreek spoken by the Drifters. _Sea. Sun. Sky. Boat. Man in a boat under the sky_. Or, when he felt bitter, _Muto in a boat under the sky_. What people called him.

Boots on his feet when he walked among people, covering the webs between his toes. Earring made of a shell, and beads braided in his hair, taking attention from the gills behind his ears. He walked carefully when he walked among people, because they were unpredictable. They were scared of him: He looked different; and some genetic accident had made him already what they were afraid people would become. _Must_ become, on a planet made of sea.

Earth once, with cities and trees. Sea now, with the meltwater of the polar ice. People floated above where ancestors had walked, drifting with the currents or the winds, hoarding and trading and stealing goods left over from the time before the flood. Pure water a memory; urine and seawater distilled into precious hydro. Green plants and seeds precious; but dirt most precious of all. Dry land an enduring myth.

The Mariner harvested the sea. _Here_ , it would say, and he would dive and find treasure. Metal objects. Jewelry. Things of plastic. Shoes. He knew why he often found them in pairs: Sea creatures wouldn’t eat the leather. Sometimes there was also a belt.

All for trade. But the cities were also places of wonder. Buildings taller than twenty men put lengthwise. Great ovals with countless rows of chairs. Some of the buildings had pictures on them, and he would stay down as long as he dared, brushing away algae to uncover a face, a hand, strange flowers, and, once, a woman with the tail of a fish. She seemed to smile at him in the flickering light of his underwater flare, and he smiled back at her. She was of his kind. Too bad she was only painted: There were no others of his kind.

He thought of it only when he was around people. Some were easy with him and let him go his way; but some were harsh. _Polluting the gene pool_. That was what they said. _Guppy_. _Fishman_. _Mutoid_. _Monster_. This also they said. _Muto_.

A dot on the horizon became a small boat. He eyed it through the telescope. A sail made of patches: faded blue, yellow, a patch of red and white stripes with a blue square. A green flag flew near the sail: trader vessel, ready for trade.

So was he. He came about, gauged the distance and the sea, glided across the waves until he was close enough to shout.

“Want to trade!” His voice was rough with disuse.

The trader looked up. His dark brown face was framed by a ragged canvas hat. “Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to Maxwell’s Merchandise Mart! What you need?”

The Mariner thought. “Resin!”

Maxwell considered it. “What you got?”

The Mariner held up a bag of copper implements. Maxwell’s eyes narrowed with his smile. “What else?”

The Mariner thought. He held up a handful of dirt.

Maxwell’s jaw dropped. “Come aboard,” he said.

The pitch of the boat was different from that of the trimaran. The Mariner felt unsteady here.

“Hydro?” Maxwell said, holding out a cup. The Mariner looked at him thoughtfully.

“Seal the deal,” said Maxwell.

The Mariner took the cup and let the mouthful of hydro inside trickle slowly down his throat. He swabbed the inside of the cup with his forefinger and licked off the delicious moisture. Seal the deal.

“Fine goods,” said Maxwell. “Where you get ’em?”

The Mariner eyed him. Maxwell grinned. “Only asked.”

The trader had a little tree in a bucket. It was a lime tree, its flowers fading to fruit. The Mariner looked at it. Limes kept the gums from bleeding and the teeth from falling out. “Give you copper for it,” he said to Maxwell.

“Sure,” said Maxwell.

The deck shifted. The Mariner looked at the movement.

It was a woman, and suddenly the Mariner knew what it was like to drown. Sea-color eyes, and waist-length hair that glinted gold in the sunlight. His groin throbbed. He caught at breath. She looked at his feet, gasped, stepped back. “Mutant!” she said, looking at the Mariner. Maxwell grinned at him. “You’re that man can swim in the sea,” Maxwell said. “Got them gills, too.”

The Mariner stepped back, suddenly wary. But Maxwell was tugging at the girl, pulling her closer. “Not just resin for sale here,” he said. “Make you children that at home in the sea.”

The woman was coming forward, dragging her feet. She did not want this. “Leesa,” Maxwell said as if the word were a caress. She did not want this, but the Mariner wanted her. He touched her hair. She flinched, but held. Hair so fine it caught on the callouses of his hand.

“Got her in trade a couple months ago,” said Maxwell. “Trade her for that dirt.”

She did not want this. But she looked into the Mariner’s eyes, and he forgot resin, forgot caution, forgot that she did not want him. “Sure,” he said.

She looked pleased. She did not want this, yet she looked pleased. Maxwell clapped his hands together and held them out for the dirt. He sniffed it; he tasted it. “Pure,” he said. He smiled at the woman.

She tensed when it came time to board the trimaran. The Mariner swept her up in his arms and made the leap for her. When he set her down, she steadied herself against him and whirled to face the trading vessel. Her back went rigid.

Maxwell smiled at her. Maxwell waved. “Trade again sometime, Mariner,” he called.

The Mariner hoisted sail. The woman stared after the trading vessel until it was out of sight.

When the Mariner touched her shoulder, she jerked and turned. Her face was tense. “I won’t hurt you,” he said. She did not want him, but he wanted her. He covered her mouth with his. He would make her want him. He kissed her and caressed her until she touched him back.

Days passed. The thought that she had not wanted him bleached in the sun until it almost disappeared. Often he spotted a sail on the horizon, but no one came close. Fruit set on the lime tree.

Nights were filled with sweet fire. Rocked by the sea, drowning in the sweetness of her mouth, tonguing salt from her moon-washed skin, nuzzling lower, cupping her belly. A child. There would be children. Her cries of pleasure were an echo of his as the moon is a pale echo of the sun.

Her hair lifting in the wind, individual strands glinting against the dark of the sea. His hands seemed drawn to it, stroking, toying, bringing it to his mouth to be kissed. As they sat together he would find himself caressing it, braiding ornaments into it. “What have you given me now?” she would say, smiling over the latest bauble.

He caught food for her, trolling himself as bait so tempting that the big shark almost didn’t notice when the harpoon exploded through its belly. She stalked away when he climbed back onto the trimaran. “Bait fish!” she spat at him. “You really are a guppy!”

Love got angry when the beloved put himself in danger. He slid bits of food between her stiff lips until she relented and let him feed her big chunks. “You big guppy,” she said. He laughed and kissed her into making love.

He brought beautiful things to her from the treasure fields below and told her of the empty cities. “Oh, I wish I could see it!” she said.

How to show her puzzled him for a time. How to keep air around her. He thought of the sacks of air he used to float treasures from the bottom. A sack of air big enough for her to breathe in the water, clear so she could see. He made a bag of clear plastic, a dome to capture a bubble of air, on a frame so he could steady it on the way down and keep the air from rising free.

Terror filled her eyes the first time they used it: a land creature trapped in an element not its own. He smiled and kissed his fingers, pressing them to the plastic in front of her face, touched when the terror did not lessen. Her legs, dangling from the dome, looked vulnerable. He yearned to caress her feet.

Dropped flares guided their way down and warned him of lurking danger. Shadows moved in the dark waters. The skeletons of buildings reached up. He guided the dome between empty buildings bowing under the weight of the sea, past metal carcasses on ruined tires. In the light of the flare, her eyes glittered.

They still glittered in the light of the sun, back on the trimaran. “All that dirt!” she cried. “All those trade goods!” She looked at him in wonder—he who knew the secrets of the sea.

He dove again for her, bringing up dirt and two hubcaps. Hung from the rigging, the hubcaps clanged merrily in the breeze. Dried in the sun, the dirt looked pale and useless, but she poured it through her fingers over and over. “It’s so light,” she said. “I thought it would be heavier.” She tasted it. “It’s salty!”

“Hydro will clean it,” he told her.

He gazed at her as she toyed with the dirt. He would bring up more and more. While he lived she would never do without, and neither would their children. He would see to that. The moonlight glittered in her eyes that night as he caressed her.

The next day he dove again, staying below until he shook with cold. He brought up dirt and a pair of plastic shoes, laughing at her imagined delight as he broke surface.

She was not there. The Mariner clambered aboard the trimaran. The tree was gone. He looked below. The jar of dirt was gone. He scanned the horizon and caught sight of a white sail, moving fast. He could move faster.

But the great sail had been slashed. A swell of anger washed over him. Taken his woman, taken his tree, taken his dirt—filthy Smokers!

It took him a day and a half to repair the sail, and by the time he finished he had little hope of finding the pirates. But anger sailed with him. The wind was strong. The sea told him, _This way_. _This_. And he obeyed.

Night had fallen and lifted six times before he spotted the boat. It was a little one, a trade vessel—odd, for Smokers traveled in packs. He approached carefully, eyeing it through the cracked telescope. Green flag out—and then hastily lowered, and sails hoisted. Strange, for a trade vessel. Then he spotted the red and white stripes. _That_ trader. He went for it as a dolphin goes for a tasty fish.

He almost laughed at the terror on their faces when the trimaran glided close. “He made me!” she cried, pointing to Maxwell. “He made me!”

The Mariner judged the distance and the wind and, at just the right moment, stepped from one vessel to the other, tying the trimaran to the trader’s boat without even looking. Maxwell stepped back, waving an oar. “You’ve got what’s mine,” the Mariner told him.

“Now, we can talk,” Maxwell said, swishing the oar.

The Mariner didn’t talk when there was no sense in it. He stepped toward Maxwell.

He didn’t make it. A net fell on him, tangling him. “I _got_ him!” Leesa cried. “I caught a _big_ fish!”

He heard the crack as the oar connected with his head, and then nothing.

_Time has passed_ , the sun told him when he woke. _Wind rising_ , said the sea. Maxwell crouched over him, holding a knife. He was still in the net.

“No hard feelings,” said Maxwell.

The Mariner looked at him. Maxwell wanted something. “No hard feelings,” the Mariner echoed.

Maxwell smiled. “Now, we can talk,” he said. “You can get things. We’d be good trading partners. You can get things, and we’d be rich. Leesa told me. You can get dirt. We can trade, and we’d be rich.”

The Mariner looked at him.

“Otherwise,” said Maxwell, “otherwise, I’d have to gut you like a fish.”

The Mariner considered this. “Sure,” he said.

Maxwell looked hard at him. “No hard feelings,” he said.

“No hard feelings.”

Freed from the net, the Mariner stretched and felt the soft place on his head where Maxwell had hit him with the oar.

“You know, she just come right back to me,” said Maxwell. “You know how women are.”

“No hard feelings,” said the Mariner.

“We had to—well, we had to take that child outta her,” Maxwell went on. “ _You_ know—mutant children, well—”

A sudden swell seemed to rock the boat. The Mariner caught himself. “No hard feelings,” he said.

Maxwell slapped him on the arm and chuckled. “You and me are gonna be rich!”

“I’ll take you down,” the Mariner said softly. “I’ll take you both down.”

“Just the one of us,” said Maxwell. “Not enough air for two. Leesa told me.” The Mariner looked at him. Maxwell flashed sunlight off the blade, into the Mariner’s eyes. “Wouldn’t like to think you were trying to get rid of us already.”

The Mariner made his lips smile. “No hard feelings,” he said, and Maxwell chuckled.

“Rope,” the Mariner said. “Below,” said Maxwell.

He went below. It was larger than the hold on the trimaran, though no less cluttered. A hank of rope swung near the ladder. Something moved behind him in the darkness.

He turned. She was behind him—hesitant, soft. “He made me,” she said. He looked at her. “The baby,” she said. “He made me.” He watched her. _Guppy_. Behind her softness she was watching him, waiting for him to believe her.

“No hard feelings,” he said.

She smiled then—an almost-soft smile, a smile of relief. She stepped forward, smiling, brushed his chest with the tip of a finger. He watched her. She smiled up at him.

“You and Maxwell are partners now,” she said. “No reason you can’t share everything.” She smiled at him and touched his lips with her finger.

Her skin was soft under his fingers. Her hair caught on his rough fingers when he let her go. He looked down at her where she sprawled, at the way a sunbeam glinted on the golden hair covering her blood-blackened face. “I don’t think so,” he said.

On deck, Maxwell grinned at him and rubbed his hands together. “Oh, boy, this is gonna be something,” he said.

The Mariner smiled at him. “Something,” he echoed.

The sea welcomed him. They sank into the blueness. Before sunlight left them, the Mariner looked at Maxwell’s face, nervous in the bubble of air. _Something_. Darkness took them.

The sun welcomed him. He bobbed in the sea while he adjusted to the air and then climbed onto the trimaran. While he hauled in the dome, he gazed into the sea, where Maxwell now had all the dirt and trade goods he wanted—though not his bubble of air. “No hard feelings,” the Mariner said.

He took what he needed from the boat: hydro, resin, trade goods, salvageable pieces, food, the little lime tree. Its wind-tossed leaves talked to him as he settled it on the trimaran. The wind was good. He hoisted sail.

Night fell.

Sky. Sea. Stars.

Muto in a boat under a sky full of stars.

The sea rocked him. He slept.

**Author's Note:**

> This story holds a personal best for least amount of time to compose: I wrote it within twenty-four hours of seeing the movie. Yes, I know it’s not the world’s best movie (though it’s better than _The Postman_ —but then, so’s just about anything … ), but I had a good time at it—from the moment the ice caps on the Universal logo melted, and its seas covered its land. I liked the culture, and I loved the trimaran. The one thing that puzzled me was why the Mariner, who theoretically doesn’t get much nookie, is so picky about what gets offered (though maybe he’s as unimpressed by her intelligence as I am). “You don’t want it,” he says, and that’s just the end of _that_ , until she makes it clear she _does_ want it. I couldn’t leave that idea alone, so I found a backstory for it.
> 
> I also wanted to play with the Mariner’s point of view: “laconic” is probably an understatement here. He doesn’t seem a man who thinks or lives in long sentences with a lot of adjectives; it was fun to pare down my prose.
> 
> Anyway, I like the story. It was the first I’d written for a long time, and I think it still holds up.


End file.
